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Holliday tidbits

Just a few odds and ends from today’s Matt Holliday deal…

* It’s likely that the deal will officially be announced, with a formal news conference, on Thursday rather than tomorrow. The Hall of Fame election announcement is on Wednesday, and they likely will try not to steal any of the spotlight from that.

* I laid out the terms in the story on the site, but here they are in a nutshell just in case. Holliday will receive $17 million for each season from 2010-2016. He has full no-trade protection. If he finishes in the top-10 in MVP balloting in 2016, a $17 million option vests for 2017. According to AP, there is a $1 million buyout if the option does not vest. I was told it is not a club option in any way, simply a vest or no-vest situation. That would make the guaranteed value $120 million (at minimum, $119 million plus the $1 million buyout) with a potential value of $136 million.

* My personal take: I’m fine with the AAV. $17 million per year is pretty reasonable for a player of Holliday’s caliber. I am not at all sold on the combination of seven years and complete no-trade protection. That could definitely put the club in a precarious spot over the final few years of the contract. I think Holliday and Scott Boras got a very good deal.

* By my estimation, the club still has approximately $6-7 million left to spend this winter.

With Holliday signing, Cashman already smells blood in the water. No Yankee talkie here thinks the Redbirds can resign Phat Albert. They’ve already shaken the money tree and started filling an account with Albert’s name on it to the tune of an 8 year blow-the-doors-off type deal. They’ve been talking about it for 2 days here now. The sharks are already starting to circle my friend…Just a heads-up. Hell, I’ll help pay for him to stay in St.L as long as it keeps him out of the Bronx.

I think this was a “danged if you do, danged if you don’t” deal. You don’t sign him, Pujols walks. You do sign him and you risk not having money for Pujols. Best risk is to sign him. At least that way if Pujols were to walk they have a very good hitter and money to pick up another really good player. Right move I think. Insurance policy. Other than Oakland, Holliday has been pretty consistent.

1. This signing doesn’t hurt the Cards chances of re-signing Pujols. Do you really think the FO is going to sign Holliday at the risk of re-signing Pujols? Personally their actions over the past year or two give me great confidence that they know what it will take to keep Pujols and they have planned accordingly. To paraphrase Dewitt: “Yeah, we can pay 95 million to Pujols and have a bunch of minor league guys around him, but that’s not how you build a winning team”

2. I don’t get the negativity from most every pundit out in the tweet/blogging world. Maybe our good friend Matt can help us out here. But, the general consensus seems to be the Cardinals bid against themselves and therefore the contract is too long, the dollars are too high and the no trade clause is a concession.

My responses, and I’m not the most informed guy so a little help would be nice, would be as follows. No bidders? If I’m not mistaken, Scott Boras is Holliday’s agent. There is plenty of evidence that supports what Boras’ next action would have been if there were no bidders. See what happened with Jeff Weaver, Manny Ramirez and lately Adrian Beltre. A short term deal with an inflated salary. Say what you want, but I find it hard to believe no team would have picked up Holliday for a year at 20 million. (Again, I’m not that informed). The Yanks have a need in LF and are apparently waiting for next year to run at Crawford, but that wouldn’t stop them from putting out a 1 year deal. The Cardinals had a perfect opportunity to get an elite player without having to bid against the Yanks (recently gave Texeira worth about the same numbers of wins per year as Holliday a 8/180 deal), Red Sox (recent deals include, well, 16.5 mil per year to Lackey, worth about half as many wins per year as Holliday), etc etc etc. In my mind, the ‘no bidders’ only allowed the Cardinals to stand a chance and if they went too low, Holliday signs a 1 year deal and tries the same thing next year…..where it’s possible there may have been bidders to beat the Cardinals.

CONTRACT TOO LONG/NO TRADE CLAUSE? Possibly, but if that’s what it took to get it done which is what Holliday has said from all along (read why he turned down the Colorado deal if you don’t believe me), then that’s what it takes. They most certainly didn’t overpay. According to Fangraphs, Holliday has been worth about 20 WAR (wins above replacement) over the past three years. They value 1 WAR at about 4.4 million, so over the last three years he’s been worth about 90 million. Even if Holliday has declined in years 6 and 7, it’s likely the Cardinals will get 120 million worth of production from him by the end of the 5th year.

Most pundits had no problem with Bay signing for 16.5 mil per year where his D will be exposed and Citi Field will likely zap his power or Lackey signing for 16.5 mil per year and he is a SP or Texeira at 22.5 mil per year. Yet, Holliday (Boras was not far off in his comparison to Texeira) signs for 17 mil per year and holy cow it’s like the worst thing in the world.

Personally, I am excited to have Holliday as an elite core player for the next however many years and to see this every day:

1. This signing doesn’t hurt the Cards chances of re-signing Pujols. Do you really think the FO is going to sign Holliday at the risk of re-signing Pujols? Personally their actions over the past year or two give me great confidence that they know what it will take to keep Pujols and they have planned accordingly. To paraphrase Dewitt: “Yeah, we can pay 95 million to Pujols and have a bunch of minor league guys around him, but that’s not how you build a winning team”

2. I don’t get the negativity from most every pundit out in the tweet/blogging world. Maybe our good friend Matt can help us out here. But, the general consensus seems to be the Cardinals bid against themselves and therefore the contract is too long, the dollars are too high and the no trade clause is a concession.

My responses, and I’m not the most informed guy so a little help would be nice, would be as follows. No bidders? If I’m not mistaken, Scott Boras is Holliday’s agent. There is plenty of evidence that supports what Boras’ next action would have been if there were no bidders. See what happened with Jeff Weaver, Manny Ramirez and lately Adrian Beltre. A short term deal with an inflated salary. Say what you want, but I find it hard to believe no team would have picked up Holliday for a year at 20 million. (Again, I’m not that informed). The Yanks have a need in LF and are apparently waiting for next year to run at Crawford, but that wouldn’t stop them from putting out a 1 year deal. The Cardinals had a perfect opportunity to get an elite player without having to bid against the Yanks (recently gave Texeira worth about the same numbers of wins per year as Holliday a 8/180 deal), Red Sox (recent deals include, well, 16.5 mil per year to Lackey, worth about half as many wins per year as Holliday), etc etc etc. In my mind, the ‘no bidders’ only allowed the Cardinals to stand a chance and if they went too low, Holliday signs a 1 year deal and tries the same thing next year…..where it’s possible there may have been bidders to beat the Cardinals.

CONTRACT TOO LONG/NO TRADE CLAUSE? Possibly, but if that’s what it took to get it done which is what Holliday has said from all along (read why he turned down the Colorado deal if you don’t believe me), then that’s what it takes. They most certainly didn’t overpay. According to Fangraphs, Holliday has been worth about 20 WAR (wins above replacement) over the past three years. They value 1 WAR at about 4.4 million, so over the last three years he’s been worth about 90 million. Even if Holliday has declined in years 6 and 7, it’s likely the Cardinals will get 120 million worth of production from him by the end of the 5th year.

Most pundits had no problem with Bay signing for 16.5 mil per year where his D will be exposed and Citi Field will likely zap his power or Lackey signing for 16.5 mil per year and he is a SP or Texeira at 22.5 mil per year. Yet, Holliday (Boras was not far off in his comparison to Texeira) signs for 17 mil per year and holy cow it’s like the worst thing in the world.

Personally, I am excited to have Holliday as an elite core player for the next however many years and to see this every day:

It will be fun for a couple of years in St. Louis, but I fear we will be very sorry in years 5, 6, and 7 of this deal. Sure, Holliday could be pretty good in those years, but it is also quite likely that he will decline and will be injured much more often. 7 year deals for 30-year-olds do not tend to end well.

Sorry guys I know this is off topic, but I JUST saw on SportsCenter, Tim Kirkjan(sp?) braking the story that Big Mac released a statement to the AP (associated press for those of you not familiar with news agencies and their acronyms) that he used steroids on and off for a decade. Now I know that pretty much everyone already knew that, but I haven’t seen anything else on it, on the cardinals site or otherwise. Matt, I’m sure you will get us a story when the time is right.

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